Letter II. ‘If we postulate a Scots translation’ (used by Moray and

Lennox) ‘_with the allusions explained by a hostile hand in the margin_, then those who professed to give a summary of its “more than three double pages” in half a dozen lines’ (there are thirty-seven lines of Lennox’s version in my hand, and Mary wrote large) ‘would easily take the striking points, not from the Letter, though it was before their eyes, but from the explanations; which were, of course, much more impressive than that extraordinary congeries of inconsequences,’ our Letter II.

To this we reply that, in Moray’s and Lennox’s versions, we have expansions and additions to the materials of Letter II. All the tale about poisoning Darnley in a house on the way is not a hostile ‘explanation,’ but an addition. All the matter about poisoning or divorcing Lady Bothwell is not an explanation, but an addition. Marginal notes are brief summaries, but if Moray and Lennox quoted marginal notes, these were so expansive that they may have been longer than the Letter itself.

Take the case of what Mary, as described in the Letter, is to forfeit for Bothwell’s sake. Lennox is in his catalogue of these goods more copious than Moray: and Letter II., in place of these catalogues, merely says ‘honour, conscience, hazard, nor greatness.’ Could a marginal annotator expand this into the talk about God, her French dowry, her various titles and pretensions? Marginal notes always abbreviate: Moray and Lennox expand; and they clearly, to my mind, cite a common text. Lennox has in his autograph corrected this passage and others.

Moray’s and Lennox’s statements about the poisoning, about the divorce or poisoning for Lady Bothwell, about Bastian (whose marriage Letter II. mentions as a proof of Darnley’s knowledge of Mary’s affairs), about the ‘finishing and preparing of the place’ (Kirk o’ Field), about ‘the house on the way,’--can all these be taken from marginal glosses, containing mere gossip certainly erroneous? If so, never did men display greater stupidity than Lennox and Moray. Where it was important to quote a letter, both (according to the theory which has been suggested) neglect the Letter and cite, not marginal abbreviations, but marginal _scholia_ containing mere tattle. If Moray truly said that he had only ‘heard of the Letter from a “man who had read it,”’ is it conceivable that the man merely cited the marginal glosses to Moray, while Lennox also selected almost nothing but the same glosses? But, of all impossibilities, the greatest is that the author of the glosses expanded ‘honour, conscience, hazard, and greatness’ (as in Letter II.) into the catalogue beginning with God, in which Moray and Lennox abound. ‘Honour, conscience, hazard, and greatness,’ explain themselves. They need no such long elaborate explanation as the supposed scholiast adds on the margin. Where we do find such contemporary marginal notes, as on the Lennox manuscript copy of the Casket Sonnets, they are brief and simply explain allusions. Thus Sonnet IV. has, in the Lennox MSS.,

‘un fascheux sot qu’elle aymoit cherement:’

_elle_ being Lady Bothwell.

The marginal note is ‘This is written of the Lord of Boyn, who was alleged to be the first lover of the Earl of Bothwell’s wife.’[240] We must remember that Lennox was preparing a formal indictment, when he reported the same Letter as Moray talked of to de Silva; and that, when the Casket Letters were produced, his discrepancies from Letter II. might perhaps be noticed even in an uncritical age. He would not, therefore, quote the _scholia_ and neglect the Letter.

The passage about Lady Bothwell’s poison or divorce is perhaps mirrored in, or perhaps originated, Lesley’s legend that she was offered a writing of divorce to sign, with a bowl of poison to drink if she refused. In fact, she received a valuable consideration in land, which she held for some forty years, as Countess of Sutherland.[241] Suppose that the annotator recorded this gossip about the poisoning of Lady Bothwell on the margin. Could a man like Moray be so foolish as to recite it _viva voce_ as part of the text of a letter?

Once more, the hypothetical marginal notes of explanation explain nothing--to Moray and Lennox. They knew from the first about Bastian’s marriage, and the explosion. The passage about poisoning Darnley ‘in a house by the way’ does not explain, but contradicts, the passage in Letter II., where Mary does not say that she is poisoning Darnley, but suggests that Bothwell should find ‘a more secret way by medicine,’ later. Lennox and Moray, again, of all people, did not need to be told, by an annotator, what Mary’s possessions and pretensions were. Finally, the lines about poisoning or divorcing Lady Bothwell are not a note explanatory of anything that occurs in Letter II., nor even an annotator’s added piece of information; for Lennox cites them, perhaps, from the Letter before him, ‘_She wrote also in her letter_, that the said Bothwell should in no wise fail to give his wife the drink as they had devised’--The Mixture as Before! Thus there seems no basis for the ingenious theory of _marginalia_, supposed to have been cited, instead of the Letter, by Lennox and Moray.

It has again been suggested to me, by a friend interested in the problem of the Casket Letters, that Moray and Lennox are both reporting mere gossip, reverberated rumours, in their descriptions of the mysterious Letter. It is hinted that Lennox heard of the Letters, perhaps from Buchanan, before Lennox left Scotland. In that case Lennox heard of the Letters just two months before they were discovered. He left Scotland on April 23, the Casket was opened on June 21. Buchanan certainly was not Moray’s informant: Jhone a Forret carried the news.

As to the idea that Moray and Lennox both report a fortuitous congeries of atoms of gossip, Moray and Lennox both (1) begin their description with Mary’s warning that Darnley’s flatteries had almost overcome her.

(2) Both speak to the desirability of speedy performance, but Lennox does not, like Moray, assign this need to the danger of Mary’s being won over.

(3) Moray does, and Lennox does not, say that Mary ‘will go and fetch’ Darnley, which cannot have been part of a letter purporting to be written at Glasgow.

(4) Moray does, and Lennox does not, speak of poisoning Darnley on the road. From a letter of three sheets no two persons will select absolutely the same details.

(5) Moray and Lennox both give the same catalogue, Lennox at more length, of all that Mary sacrifices for Bothwell.

(6) Both Moray and Lennox make Mary talk of the house where the explosion is already arranged: at least Lennox talks of its being ‘prepared,’ which may merely mean made inhabitable.

(7) Both make her say that the night of Bastian’s marriage will be a good opportunity.

(8) Both make Mary advise Bothwell to poison his wife, Moray adding the alternative that he may divorce her.

(9) Lennox does, and Moray does not, mention the phrase ‘wishing him then in her arms,’ which occurs in Casket Letter II. The fact does not strengthen the case for the authenticity of Letter II.

As to order of sequence in these nine items, they run,

1. Moray 1. Lennox 1. 2. Moray 2. Lennox 2. 3. Moray 3. (an error) Lennox 0. 4. Moray 4. Lennox 0. 5. Moray 8. = = Lennox 5. 6. Moray 6. Lennox 6. 7. Moray 7. Lennox 7. 8. Moray 5. = = Lennox 8. 9. Moray 0. Lennox 9.

Thus, in four out of nine items (Moray 3 being a mere error in reporting), the sequence in Moray’s description is the same as the sequence in that of Lennox. In one item Moray gives a fact not in Lennox. In one Lennox gives a fact not in Moray. In the remaining items, Moray and Lennox give the same facts, but that which is fifth in order with Lennox is eighth in order with Moray.

Mathematicians may compute whether these coincidences are due to a mere fortuitous concurrence of atoms of gossip, possessing a common basis in the long Glasgow Letter II., and in the facts of the murder, and accidentally shaken into the same form, and almost the same sequence, in the minds of two different men, _at two different times_.

My faith in fortuitous coincidence is not so strong. Is it possible that the report of Lennox and the report of Moray, both of them false, as far as regards Letter II., or any letter ever produced, have a common source in a letter at one time held by the Lords, but dropped by them?

The sceptic, however, will doubtless argue, ‘We do not know the date of this discourse, in which Lennox describes a letter to very much the same effect as Moray does. May not Lennox have met Moray, in or near London, when Moray was there in July, 1567? May not Moray have told Lennox what he told de Silva, and even more copiously? What he told was (by his account) mere third-hand gossip, but perhaps Lennox received it from him as gospel, and sat down at once, and elaborated a long “discourse,” in which he recorded as fact Moray’s tattle. By this means de Silva and Lennox would offer practically identical accounts of the long letter; accounts which, indeed, correspond to no known Casket Letter, but err merely because Moray’s information was hearsay, casual, and unevidential.’ ‘Why,’ my inquirer goes on, ‘do you speak of Lennox and Moray giving their descriptions of the Letter _at two different times_?’

The answer to the last question may partly be put in the form of another question. Why should Lennox be making a long indictment, of seven folio pages, against Mary, in July, 1567, when Moray was passing through town on his way from France to Scotland? Mary was then a prisoner in Loch Leven. Lennox, though in poverty, was, on July 16, 1567, accepted as a Joint-Regent by Mary, if Moray did not become Regent, alone.[242] On July 29, 1567, James VI. was crowned, a yearling King, and it was decided that if Moray, who had not yet arrived in Scotland, refused to be Regent alone, Lennox should be joined with him and others on a Commission of Regency.[243] Moray, of course, did not refuse power, nor did Lennox go to Scotland. But, even if Lennox had really been made a co-Regent when Moray held his conversation about the Letter with de Silva, he would have had, at that moment, no need to draw up his ‘discourse’ against Mary. The Lords had subdued her, had extorted her abdication, and did not proceed to accuse their prisoner. Again, even if they had meant to try her at this time, that would not explain Lennox’s supposed conduct in then drawing up against her an indictment, including the gossip about her Letter, which (on the hypothesis) he had, at that hour, obtained from Moray, in London. This can easily be proved: thus. The document in which Lennox describes the Letter was never meant for a _Scottish_ court of justice. It is carefully made out _in English_, by an English scribe, and is elaborately corrected in Lennox’s hand, as a man corrects a proof-sheet. Consequently, this early ‘discourse’ of Lennox’s, with its description of the murderous letter, never produced, was meant, not for a Scottish, but for an English Court, or meeting of Commissioners. None such could be held while Mary was a prisoner in Scotland: and no English indictment could then be made by Lennox. He must have expected the letter he quoted to be produced: which never was done.

Therefore Lennox did not weave this discourse, and describe the mysterious Letter, while Moray was giving de Silva a similar description, at London, in July, 1567. Not till Mary fled into England, nearly a year later, May 15, 1568, not till it was determined to hold an inquiry in England (about June 30, 1568), could Lennox construct an indictment in English, to go before English Commissioners. Consequently his description of the letter was not written at the same time (July, 1567) as Moray described the epistle to de Silva. The exact date when Lennox drew up his first Indictment, including his description of the Letter described by Moray, is unknown. But it contains curious examples of ‘the sayings and reports’ of Mary’s own _suite_, as to words spoken by her in their own ears. Therefore it would seem to have been written _after_ June 11, 1568, when Lennox wrote to Scotland, asking his chief clansmen to collect ‘the sayings of her servants and their reports.’[244] Again, as late as August 25, 1568, Lennox had not yet received permission from Elizabeth to go to the meeting of the Commission of Inquiry which it was then intended to hold at Richmond. Elizabeth ‘flatly denied him,’ though later she assented.[245] Thus Lennox’s composition of this indictment with its account of the mysterious epistle, may be provisionally dated between, say, July 1 (when he might have got a letter of information from Scotland in answer to his request for information) and August 25, 1568.

But an opponent, anxious to make the date of Lennox’s knowledge of the poisonous letter seem early, may say, ‘Probably Lennox, in July, 1567, when Moray was in London, met him. Probably Moray told Lennox what he would not tell Elizabeth. Probably Lennox then wrote down Moray’s secondhand hearsay gossip about the letter, kept it, and, later, in 1568, copied it into his discourse to go before English Commissioners. Moray’s verbal report is his only source, and Moray’s was hearsay gossip. We have, so far, no proof that the letter described by Lennox and Moray ever existed.’

To this I reply that we know nothing of communication between Lennox and Moray in July, 1567, but we do know when Lennox began to collect evidence for the ‘discourse,’ in which this mysterious letter is cited. In June, 1568, Mary complained to Elizabeth that Lady Lennox was hounding Lennox on to prosecute her. Mary had somehow got hold of letters of Wood and of Lady Lennox.[246] We also infer that, when Lennox first took up his task, he may have already seen Scots translations of the Casket Letters as they then existed. We know too that he had now an adviser who should not have allowed him to make a damaging error in his indictment, such as quoting a non-existent letter. This adviser was John Wood. After Mary’s flight into England (May 16, 1568) Moray had sent, on May 21, his agent, John Wood (‘Jhone a Forret’?), to London, where he was dealing with Cecil on June 5, 1568.[247] Now Wood carried with him Scots translations of the Casket Letters, as they then existed. This is certain, for, on June 22, Moray sent to the English Council the information that Wood held these translations, and Moray made the request that the ‘judges’ in the case might see the Scots versions, and say whether, if the French originals corresponded, they would be reckoned adequate proof of Mary’s guilt.[248]

The judges, that is the Commissioners who sat at York in October, apparently did not, in June, see Wood’s copies: their amazement on seeing them later, at York, is evidence to that. But Lennox, perhaps, did see the Scots versions in Wood’s hands. On June 11, from Chiswick, as has been said, Lennox wrote three letters to Scotland; one to Moray, one to his retainers, the Lairds of Houstoun and Minto, men of his own clan; and one to other retainers, Thomas Crawford, Robert Cunningham, and Stewart of Periven. To Moray he said that of evidence against Mary ‘there is sufficiency in her own hand-writ, _by the faith of her letters_, to condemn her.’ But he also wanted to collect extraneous evidence, in Scotland.

Here Lennox writes as one who has seen, or been told the contents of, the Casket Letters on which he remarks. And well might he have seen them, for his three despatches of June 11 are ‘all written on the same sheets, _and in the same hand_,’ as two letters written and sent, on the following day, by John Wood, from Greenwich, to Moray and Lethington. Thus Wood, or his secretary, wrote out all five epistles.[249] Consequently Wood, who had translations of the Casket Letters, was then with Lennox, and was likely to be now and then with him, till the Conference at York in October. On October 3, just before the Conference at York, Lady Lennox tells Cecil that she means to speak to Mr. John Wood, if he is at Court, for he knows who the murderers are.[250] And Wood carried to Lennox, at York, Lady Lennox’s despatches.[251] Being allied with Wood, as the Chiswick and Greenwich letters of June 11, 12, prove, and writing to Wood’s master, Moray, about Mary’s Casket Letters, it is hardly probable that Lennox had not been shown by Wood the Scots versions of the Casket Letters, then in Wood’s custody. And when, about this date or later, Lennox composed the long indictment against Mary, and quoted the letter already cited by Moray, it is hardly credible that he described the long poisonous document from mere hearsay, caught from Moray in the previous year. It is at least as likely, if not much more so, that his description of the long letter was derived from a translation of the letter itself, as it then existed in the hands of Wood. Is it probable that Wood (who was known to have in his custody the Letters to which Lennox refers, in his epistle to Moray of June 11) could withhold them from the father of the murdered Darnley, a noble who had been selected by the Lords as a co-Regent with Moray, and who was, like himself, a correspondent of Moray and an eager prosecutor of the Queen? If then Wood did in June, 1568, show to Lennox the Casket Letters as they then existed, when Lennox presently described the long murderous letter, he described what he had seen, namely a _pièce de conviction_ which was finally suppressed. And that it was later than his meeting with Wood, on June 11, 1568, that Lennox prepared his elaborate discourse, is obvious, for what reason had he to compose an indictment before, in June or later, it became clear that Mary’s case would be tried in England?

Not till June 8 did Elizabeth send to Moray, bidding him ‘impart to her plainly all that which shall be meet to inform her of the truth for their defence in such weighty crimes’ as their rebellion against Mary.[252] Mary, Elizabeth declared, ‘is content to commit the ordering of our case to her,’ and Moray has consented, through Wood, ‘to declare to us your whole doings.’ Elizabeth therefore asks for Moray’s evidence against Mary. From that date, June 8, the negotiations for some kind of trial of Mary went on till October, 1568. In that period, Lennox must have written the discourse in which he cites the false letter, and in that period he had the aid of Wood, in whose hands the Scots translations were.

The inference that Lennox borrowed his description of a long poisonous epistle from a forged letter, a very long letter, then in Wood’s custody with the rest, and occupying the place later taken by Letter II., is natural, and not illogical, but rather is in congruence with the relations between Wood and Lennox. The letter described had points in common with